


Nostalgia

by silentshadows



Category: Sailor Moon
Genre: Closure, F/M, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Memories, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 09:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentshadows/pseuds/silentshadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it's hard, remembering her first time around in this life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nostalgia

The building is an achingly familiar sight, even after all this time. The freeze has ended, the age of Crystal Tokyo has begun – and yet, she can't move past this building, long vacant and cold with disuse. Once her home, her prison, her school... The other buildings of the academy have either been torn down or remodeled. They all look different; the rise of the new era and major boost in the economy probably had something to do with it. This is still a back alley, a place that most people don't wander, just because there's nothing of interest here. She inherited this building and his money when she turned eighteen a few years ago, and she still hasn't set foot in here yet. Jo's supposed to be meeting her here, but now, she doesn't know if she wants to do this. But the building can't sit forever, and she's got to move on, and she knows it. Maybe something in here will give her that last inch of closure that she needs to stop hating him so completely.

She leans against the outer barrier, the old sign reading _Tomoe Laboratories_ faded with weather and age. She makes herself glance past it to the watch on her wrist. She has forty five minutes. Then Johannes will be there, and he'll make it better, like he always does. But some of these things can't be made better, she thinks, and she can almost see Kaori in a window, that bright red against white. She swallows, knowing that she's stronger than this with all that she's been through, and she starts for the side door that will lead to her old house, digging the long-unused set of keys out of her pocket. The door jams, and she wants to take that as an omen that she doesn't need to go any further, just let the place be torn down. But she can't.

She forces her way inside, coughing at the sheer amount of dust that she kicks up. She waves her hand in front of her face a few times, glancing around at her one-time home in disbelief. It's all the same, just covered in a layer of dust so thick that she can't quite place colors on things anymore. Thinking back, she realizes that it's been nearly ten years since she lived here. Ten years since anything had disturbed the ghosts that wandered here. She shudders at that thought, taking hesitant steps into the room like simply being there invites Mistress Nine back into her body and returns her to her cyborg state. She has to reach for reassurance that her fiancee is coming as soon as he gets done with his meeting. She should have waited for him, but knows that if she doesn't take the first few steps alone, she won't.

She follows an oddly nostalgic track in the carpet, ignoring rooms to her left and right and stopping at the one she used to call her own. The door has remained closed, where almost all the others were open. She opens it and the door swings with ease, almost as if it's welcoming her home. The room is nearly black, the dark curtains blocking out most of the light. Her hand reaches out of it's own accord and flips on a lamp, one of the ones that ran on oil. The seal had prevented it from evaporating. The light flickered, but it was enough. 

This room was easy because she knew it. She knew it as well as she knew anything. There were a few books that she wanted, a photo album, two of the lamps. The rest she could donate to charity, because none of the clothing would fit her anymore, and everything else, she simply didn't want. She carried those things that she wanted back to the living room, setting them on the coffee table gently, trying to disturb the quiet as little as possible. As she's about to go through her father's room, she stops, hand nearly on the wood to push it open. 

The door at the end of the hallway has a purple light on underneath it.

She knows there has to be an explanation, but she panics anyway. She can remember both her father and Kaori coming back from that room with those looks on her face, and then those black times... She never remembered. She'd been drowning in herself, then. She steels herself, then walks down the hallway, fighting with the keys to find the right one. To her surprise, it's unlocked, and she descends down the stairs near-silently, listening for any noise that could indicate an enemy or an attack. There's nothing. Thirty minutes until Johannes arrives.

She can tell what things are, even though she's never been down here while she could remember it. Her father's desk is the one covered messily with papers, Kaori's is neat. Her father's bookshelf has things sticking out at all angles, odd objects stuck in between the books, like abstract glass sculptures with intricate bubble designs. He was a quirky man. She ignores everything that was Kaori's, because she doesn't have much that would be of any interest. Her desk, besides the dust, is nearly bare, save a stack of papers that has the Tomoe Laboratories header emblazoned on the top. Sponsorship forms, by the look of them. Half filled out; she slides them off the desk and into the trash can that's been there for just about ever, leaving Kaori's desk bare but for the trail through the dust.

She seats herself at her father's desk, still on guard, because no light bulb should last more than a few years, let alone ten. She flipped a switch when she came down the stairs, so she can't tell where it's coming from now, but there's got to be an explanation. She picks up the first sheet of paper, staring at it for a moment before she just sets it back down, resolving to get Ami and Zach to come down here and make sure they weren't throwing away the non-magical cure for cancer or something. She can read her father's chicken-scratch writing, but she can't figure out what it says. Something about ethylene glycol and base temperatures. She knows that he was crazy, because her life had been the product of that, but she hasn't ever really bothered to think that perhaps he was a real human inside all of that mess. 

She knows that he was once. She can remember, very vaguely, going to the park with him and her mother and things like that. Memories of riding on his shoulders, before he got caught up in his studies about alien lifeforms forming the planet as an experiment of their own. Everyone knew how that story went – human experimentation, explosions, aliens, possession, almost the end of the world. Typical day in the Tomoe household, to be honest.

She exhales sharply, glancing at her watch again. Twenty five minutes. Her breath had upset a few of the papers on the desk, revealing other items. A hand, a photograph, another set of keys. She picked up the hand with hesitation, almost feeling the whirr of the machinery inside of her again. She glances at the wrist, where it would have once been attached to the half-robotic portion of her left arm, reading the number out loud. So this had been her hand when she was about eleven and a half. She sighs, setting it down gently, because she knows that her body worked well enough, and maybe they could take apart the old parts of her to make some breakthrough in prosthetics or something.

The picture is covered in dust, propped up on some old books. She picks it up with the same hesitation that she picked up the hand, because she's almost afraid to see what it is. A thumb smudge clears away her mother's face, and she stops, frowning in surprise. She uses her sleeve to clear the rest, and sure enough, it's a family photo that she can't remember, herself perched on her father's lap and holding her mother's hand. The lenses of both of his glasses are clear, and he's smiling, just like the other two of them. She pulls it to her chest for half a moment, sighing, then picks up the key, setting the picture frame in her lap. She can't leave that down here in the dark.

Her first instinct is to try the drawer on the right side of the desk. Sure enough, it's locked, and sure enough, the key fits and turns smoothly. It's full of more papers, several books and folders. She picks up the top folder, flipping it open out of sheer curiosity. She skims the first page and her eyebrows knit together, and she grabs another folder and opens it on top of the desk, her mouth falling open. _'Combating epilepsy in children and young adults'_ , _'Rebounding from a collapsed respiratory system'_. 

Each folder makes her fall further into a pit of disbelief. This entire drawer was research for her. There's a worn pocket handbook of the human nervous system, which she flips open to find highlighting in six different colors, notes in all the margins, underlining. It's almost enough to make her cry, because she's spent years believing that he just didn't care that she had been literally falling apart. She sets the little book down on top of the frame in her lap and closes the drawer, leaving it unlocked.

When she looks back up and sighs, she's got ten minutes until Jo's going to be there. She stands up, carrying the photo and the book with her, resolving to find the source of that light. There was nothing purple that could have reflected. This place was too white for that. The door to the left, she figures, will lead her down the corridor to the Witches 5 offices. The one on the right is probably right down into the place they'd made the monsters. She'd prefer to wait for Jo on those, because while this part is all fine and nostalgic, some things she knew could sleep for ten years and wake up mad. Odds were slim, but she'd still rather wait for backup. 

Unable to find the light source, she starts up the stairs when Jo tells her through the link that he's on his way, turning with confusion and irritation towards the door after she closes it. Glancing down. There's no light anymore. She makes her way down the hallway, calling for her fiancee to come inside, that she's already there. She sets the picture and the worn down little book on top of the stack of stuff from her bedroom, grinning at him as she twirls in a circle and gives him the 'grand introduction.'

She knows this was a good idea now. She has her closure. She's able to see this place as a building instead of a mausoleum. A flash of purple catches her eye from the direction of the glass door – she turns toward it with a start, blinking in surprise. The reflection opposite of her is not herself, but her past self, not the solider, but the Princess, an ethereal purple glow. She offers a smile, which is returned with a nod. She glances over her shoulder to make sure that she's not the only one seeing it, but no, Jo sees it too, she can tell by the look on his face. The girl in the reflection cups her hands together and the light appears, and Hotaru just laughs, knowing she's been tricked. For a good cause, though. She mentally hugs the girl in the reflection, who just smiles again and then waves shyly at the shadowmancer behind Hotaru as she vanishes and leaves the pair staring at their own reflections in the glass.

Maybe there are no ghosts here after all.


End file.
